"HARVARD PLUCK."

"I SAY, Bob! - Bob, wake up there! - are you going up to the Pudding meeting? Somebody is yelling outside for us to come up and make a quorum."

"Why, it rains, don't it?" said Bob, yawning, and refilling and lighting his "nut-brown pipe," "and I 've taken my shoes off. Turn down the gas, and we can have a quiet chat over the fire, and a 'hot scotch.'"

"Well, don't care if I do; but how about that examination to-morrow?"

"O, that only counts a small per cent! I sha' n't look at it till the semiannual. Did you see the Club races, Harry? I meant to go in, but somehow or another I could n't make up my mind to get up in time, as I cut prayers." Here he tore a page off an old Crimson and lit his pipe again.

"Well, Bob," replied his chum after a pause, "it seems to me you are an example of a class of fellows here to whom, on account of their inactivity and lack of interest in everything after they have got into the societies and clubs, is largely due the defeats which Harvard has been receiving for the last three or four years."

"Why, what can I do about it? I don't row and play base nor foot ball. I can't sport athletically, and I do subscribe every now and then; but I 've overrun my allowance now, and have n't paid my 'man in London' for a year."

"That 's all very well; but a great many - too many give these same excuses - fellows won't subscribe, rowing men won't row, and the ball nine - well, something is the matter there; and things have now come to such a pass that the Alma Mater looks only to our foot-ball team for some autumnal laurels, - and we have n't beaten Yale yet."

"O Harry, don't bubble over so; you 'd better go down to the Gymnasium and cool off. I think Harvard will pull through pretty well."

"I tell you, Bob, about a week before the College Regatta our men begin to take the interest which should be felt now, and all the time; and until it is felt, Harvard will have to stay in the Convention and be beaten every year. As I said before, the majority of fellows here don't take any interest in athletics, don't care for politics, don't read, won't study, and can't even talk outside the limited tether of college elections, gossip, the theatre, the lightest reading of the Saturday Evening Gazette, and the funny columns of our daily newspapers, - and you are one of that class, and a very popular man, if that comforts you. Good night."